Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[IronyOwl]

Expand to 12, 11, 10, 3, 71, 75, 76. Use the last action to hold a parade in my honor.


I'm probably in favor of that sow-reap x(number of fields) system. If you wanted to get really fancy you could even add diminishing population growth- for instance, requiring a number of harvests or what have you equal to your current population to grow another point.

I'll bear those suggestions in mind. The benefit of cities is supposed to be that they prevent your population from being eaten away through conquest, but this could be drawn out a bit more by having a bigger map. This might encourage each civilisation to have a sort of heartland with their cities in, with a frontier that's heavily contested. I'll definitely be rethinking the population advancement, as it's very easy for there to be huge gulfs in the number of actions you can take.

Well, sort of. The player with the most terrain at the end of the game wins, so being able to take mountains and hold them is useful in the long run (and in the early game, holding a mountain might prevent you from being wiped out).

The problem with these are that they're more delaying the bleeding and less getting ahead. If you're getting hammered by conquest, you probably need to conquest them right back or set up a chokepoint that's too expensive for them to break through, not build some cities so no matter how much of your land they grab you'll still have some actions. Same with holding a mountain defensively- unless it's a chokepoint, sitting on a single mountain tile that it's just not worth it to conquer probably doesn't help you too much.

An interesting notion, but it would require a lot more from the players. I'm very much in favour of being in a position of waiting on players: the game is more engaging if it moves briskly. The money idea would require players to think tactically on another level, which is nice, but simply giving the poorest performing players the most advantage would probably work better for game balancing given the different skill levels of players.

I'm generally in agreement that "More Features Good, More Complexity Bad." I'd love to have gold and trade routes and trade goods and royalty and bloodlines and heroes and equipment and a horse-breeding minigame, but I'm not sure how many of those would actually improve the game along its current goals.

Maybe one of us could make a Heretics of Hexland Advanced version at some point, where you've got six different types of polearms.

What do people think of the Heresies as they stand? Builder was far and away the most popular. I'm thinking I priced the Shaker ability too high.

They're... odd.

Shaker would be good for leveling mountains to build on, but it is, as you say, pricey, and there aren't many mountains. You'd need kind of a specific starting spot to make carving out mountains for farms worth it, I think.

Builder is amazing because it lets you turn useless terrain into a population point for one action. Those deserts near me would be complete, 100% dead space (well, and defensive natural boundaries) without Builder, because I'm too far from water to irrigate them. I also would probably never bother building a city without it, because it consumes precious plains.
_{Though as a side note, I actually picked it in part for RP reasons. :3}

Aquatic is, as mentioned, really only useful for Merfolk aggression and Doge defensive lines, and even then it's somewhat situational. Not even merfolk prefer lakes/rivers to plains, and it's no more efficient to flood forests than to just take over and chop them down, so it's pretty much limited to flooding enemies before you invade them or raising barricades.

Merciless is interesting, but probably not useful for most conquests. That ability to create a dead zone while looting it could be handy for longer conflicts, though.

Bountiful is really only good for the Parakeetkin, since most other races have no interest in forests otherwise and a great deal of interest in chopping them down. It is amazing on the Parakeetkin, however.

Chaotic is kind of tempting, but it's so likely to give you something you don't care about that I'm not sure it's actually worth an action, much less a Heresy slot.


Overall, they tend to feel far too specialized to me. I'd prefer if they mimicked those racial traits that change the way their owner views the world without changing the way everyone else does more, but I think the more important feature is making sure they're equally useable by a much larger number of species. The notion of merfolk flooding their enemies before conquering them is certainly interesting, but it's a bit odd to have a Heresy for it, I think.

Alternatively, I guess you could keep going the specialized route, but maybe add some more so each species has at least two fairly useful/synergistic options.

[notquitethere]

That's, uh, not what I would have used my last action on there. You make a lot of good points that I'll be considering for the next version. One other idea that occurred to me was to make give the Heresies additional victory points at the end of the game for holding their preferred kind of terrain (Builders +1 for every city etc.), but that only makes sense if the game doesn't tend towards total conquest... OK, I'll process this season when I'm in front of a proper computer in about two hour's time.

[kaian-a-coel]

Another thing: cities shouldn't replace the tile they're built on IMO. As it stands it's counter productive to build them on a plain or anything that can become a plain (because Grow/Harvet is so OP), and at the same time a city built on a mountain and one built on a field are identical, meaning the mountain is losing its defensive bonus. I'm going to propose my own changes this evening.

[notquitethere]

IronyOwl
I'm going to be generous and interpret '71' as '61' given that you're right next to 61 and nowhere near 71.

kaian-a-coel

Another thing: cities shouldn't replace the tile they're built on IMO. As it stands it's counter productive to build them on a plain or anything that can become a plain (because Grow/Harvet is so OP), and at the same time a city built on a mountain and one built on a field are identical, meaning the mountain is losing its defensive bonus. I'm going to propose my own changes this evening.

Yeah I think you've got something there. Maybe turn a city into something similar to a fortification, that merely modifies the values of the tile rather than changing it outright (so you can have a forest city, mountain city etc.). But maybe this wouldn't be an issue if I use a more toned down version of growing/harvesting, where you have to sow in the spring if you want to reap in the fall.

OK... update imminent...

[IronyOwl]

IronyOwl
I'm going to be generous and interpret '71' as '61' given that you're right next to 61 and nowhere near 71.

Whoops, yeah.

That's, uh, not what I would have used my last action on there.

Oh wait, it's Spring. Can I change that to Grow? >_>

[notquitethere]

That's, uh, not what I would have used my last action on there.

Oh wait, it's Spring. Can I change that to Grow? >_>

Yeah, that's OK, you caught me just in time. I figured that's what you would have wanted to do.

[notquitethere]

YEAR TWO SUMMER

Spoiler: Map Summer Year 2 (click to show/hide)

A new year dawned on the new dustbowls and cities of Hexland, and the acres upon acres of newly enclosed land where once was pristine wilderness. In the west, the antmen of the Xuid Collective hatched their eggs and pulsating white larvae were fed by the thousands of workers, bedded in the stony corpses of trolls. Meanwhile, the rapacious East Hexian Comapany fenced off all the central steppes, growing maize to feed the burgeoning coastal cities. The swine of the south continued to whelp and wend their way across plains and peninsulas, expanding as far as the great desert. And still, in the north, the chattering simians slowly stepped out of their citadel and into the forests beyond...

In Summer, you can: Expand, Improve, Raze, Raid, Fortify; and, if you have the right Heresy: Tower or Brutal Raid. Probably best to do this in strict turn order as everyone can now interact with at least one other player. Remember that you can confer using private messages for purposes of secret deals; don't forget about raiding.

The turn order is:
a1s [pop 28]
kaian-a-coel [pop 14]
Lidku [pop 2]
IronyOwl [pop 18]

[kaian-a-coel]

Okay here's a rough draft:
-grow/harvest as proposed
-cities as improvements, limites on field + heresy favoured terrain
-population cap at (number of hex + number of cities)
-rivers as hex boundaries giving +1 defence from across it (+2 for doge, negated by merfolk). Full water hex lakes still exist, considered surrounded by rivers for defence purposes (otherwise def = 0?)
-raze doesnt give +1 pop, dont turn into desert. Instead, destroy all improvements (fortif, city, fields).
-allow fortify in winter
-conquering destroys fields and forrifications but not cities.

Heresies changes:
-All heresies can turn all terrain save mountains into their favoured terrain. (improvement turn them back into fields).
-Can build cities on fields + favoured terrain only
-Favoured terrain count double for victory points.

-Shakers: favour mountains. Only ones to bring up or down mountains. Would favour turtling.
-builders: can build cities anywhere. Need another bonus.
-aquatic: favour lakes. Can create lakes and rivers. Field with rivers have double yield.
-merciless: favour desert. Merciless raid 2A: raid, raze and gain 1pop. Cannot target your own land. Cannot target fortified tiles unless species allows it. Can conquer in the same turn.
-bountiful: favour forest. Forests increase MINIMUM pop by one each.

EDIT (here because unwieldy phone): tone down chain conquer/expansion: humans can totally wipe both me and the monkeys this turn and we cant do anything about it.

Species:
-humans go last.
-swap monkeys and spider bonuses.
-merfolk ignore/reduce river crossing defence when attacking.
-doge increase river crossing defence when defending, river crossing decrease difficulty whem
 expanding (leading to expansion alongside rivers).

[a1s]

I was thinking for raze: remove all buildings,desertify, +1 pop, lose control and can't reconquer on the same turn (but others can). Combined with the pop limits from territory size I think it could be interesting.

[kaian-a-coel]

I think that only heresies should give the ability to turn terrain into something else than plains. So no desertify. IMO raze should be used to deny the ennemy a contested city, not munchkining population out of nowhere.

[notquitethere]

kaian-a-coel, lots of good suggestions there, most of which I'm considering taking wholly on board. I like the idea of a territory+city population cap, and the heresy changes looks interesting. I considered having the heresies and species to be one-pick only. With the different victory point and city founding changes, this could force a more tactically varied game— what do you reckon? I'm erring towards a1s' version of razing.

I like the idea of rivers-as-boundaries, but I'll have to think about how I'll draw that on the map to make it clear but not too fiddly. The species changes all make sense, though I think, thematically, monkeys are more suited to raiding and spider more suited to building (if not deforestation etc.)— well, if raiding actually involved more theft. As it it, it doesn't directly aid the Raider unless they're Merciless, so I might make a change there.

I think that only heresies should give the ability to turn terrain into something else than plains. So no desertify. IMO raze should be used to deny the ennemy a contested city, not munchkining population out of nowhere.

I agree about avoiding munchikining population, but just having it something to deny enemies a city makes it of only limited tactical use. Ideally, all the actions in a given season should present themselves as equally tempting possibilities.

Perhaps, instead of giving a permanent +1 population, razing should destroy everything on the tile, turn it into wasteland, remove it from the player's possession (at the end of their turn) and give that player an additional action for that turn. That way, players could employ a slash and burn strategy to eke enough actions to achieve something at the cost of development.

[kaian-a-coel]

Draw rivers as thicker, blue borders.
What I'm against is Raze turning tiles into true desert, with the heresy changes and notably to Merciless. It could, however, apply a "razed" effect making building/farming impossible for everyone until an Improve action gets rid of it. You wouldnt be able to Raze and un-Raze the same turn, and maybe not un-Raze and rebuild in the same turn.
Razing neighbouring tiles could destroy fields and unprotected cities. Being able to improve in winter suddenly becomes interesting since you can salvage the next year harvest.

Merciless Raze may keep the true Desertification and the pop gain (coupled with the pop loss it can represent slavery).

[a1s]

I think that only heresies should give the ability to turn terrain into something else than plains. So no desertify. IMO raze should be used to deny the ennemy a contested city, not munchkining population out of nowhere.

Yes, but that's almost never worth an action (for the same price you can raid- reduce enemy pop, or frotify- prevent raiding and make taking the territory require an addional action) plus for 1 action of their own, they'll build the city back.

[notquitethere]

Remember, a1s you can't conquer until Fall. If you don't amend your action before the others post theirs, I'll be forced to ignore ten of your actions.

[kaian-a-coel]

Now that changes things quite a bit... I was redacting my terms of surrender. Guess not. I'll wait a bit then.